1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a setting information transmission/reception system that transmits information of settings of a transmitter to a receiver, and to the transmitter and the receiver.
2. Description of Related Art
In recent years a mode has become widely used in which a plurality of network terminal devices are connected to a network, and network terminal devices are used in a mutually cooperative fashion. When a plurality of network terminal devices are connected to a network and used cooperatively in this way, it is necessary for setting information relating to one cooperatively-used network terminal device to be transmitted to another network terminal device, and for that other network terminal device to recognize settings relating to that first network terminal device. The reason for this is that, if settings relating to one network terminal device are not recognized by another network terminal device, a setting discrepancy will occur between the two, causing a problem when they are used cooperatively.
The conventional procedure for having setting information relating to one network terminal device recognized by another network terminal device will now be described. The following description takes the example of a network that uses Universal Plug and Play (UPnP), which is one kind of network technology. Special features of UPnP are that a network terminal device can join or leave a network while that network terminal device's power is on (a facility known as “hot-plug”), and that special driver software is not necessary and UPnP is not dependent on the kind of OS (operating system) started up on network terminal devices. UPnP is thus known as a technology that offers outstanding ease of connection to a network.
FIG. 1 shows a timing chart when printer setting information for a printer that is a UPnP device is transmitted from the printer to a personal computer (hereinafter referred to as “PC”) in which a UPnP control point that manages and controls UPnP devices has been activated. Here, an example is described in which the user changes default settings relating to printer print quality (Print Quality), paper size (Media Size), and multiple page printing (Number Up: 2-in-1, 4-in-1, or similar facilities for printing a plurality of pages in condensed form on a single sheet of paper) consecutively at 10-second intervals.
First, when a default setting relating to printer print quality is changed by a user—for example, changing from low quality (such as 300 dpi) to medium quality (such as 600 dpi) (T1401)—the printer, which is a UPnP device, sends ssdp:byebye (ssdp=Simple Service Discovery Protocol) to a UPnP control point (here and hereinafter a PC) connected to the network (T1403). This ssdp:byebye informs the UPnP control point connected to the network that the printer has left the network. More specifically, because a change has been made in the printer settings, there is a discrepancy between the printer settings after the change and the pre-change printer settings recognized by the PC. Accordingly, the printer reports that the printer is temporarily leaving the network.
After performing a reset operation (T1405), the printer executes initialization and generation of Description (XML (Extensible Markup Language) data indicative of setting information, etc. of the subject printer) (T1407) in order to provide the PC with the Description in which the above-described change contents are reflected.
The printer then sends ssdp:alive to the PCs connected to the network (T1409). This ssdp:alive is to inform UPnP control point PCs that the printer has joined the network.
When a PC receives this ssdp:alive, the PC sends to the printer that has sent ssdp:alive an HTTP GET command requesting transmission of a Description indicative of information of the settings of that printer (T1411). In response to this, the printer transmits to the PC Description showing information of the newly-changed setting (T1413). By receiving this Description, the PC can recognize the new printer setting (default print quality setting=medium quality).
It is noted that when a UPnP control point that receives ssdp:alive sends an HTTP GET command to a UPnP device, the UPnP device sends back a Device Description containing the device information of the UPnP device. Then, when the UPnP control point again sends an HTTP GET command based on a URL (Uniform Resource Locator) that is included in the Device Description, the UPnP device sends back a Service Description containing setting information of the UPnP device. Essentially, the UPnP control point can recognize the settings of the UPnP device (printer settings) only when the UPnP control point obtains this Service Description. However, for the sake of simplicity, acquisition of the Device Description and acquisition of Service Description will be regarded as a single operation (acquisition of the Description) in the following description.
The above-described exchange of data is executed each time a setting is changed. Therefore, the same processing (T1417 through T1427, T1431 through T1441) is also executed for a paper size-related default setting change (T1415) made 10 seconds after the print quality default setting is changed, and a multiple page-related default setting change (T1429) made 10 seconds after the paper size default setting is changed.